The seafood street on the North Ring of Shajing, inside a seafood stall called Liu Ji.
A group of urban white-collar men and women were dining here. When the boss wasn’t around, they found plenty of topics to discuss, making the atmosphere particularly lively.
"Ningning, um, can I call you Ningning? After all, your name is too long... You should try this Shajing oyster. You probably don’t have it over in Yunan Province, right?"
At that moment, a slightly older guy was showing interest in a girl. As soon as a large plate of steamed Shajing oysters was brought to the table, he eagerly picked one up and placed it in her bowl.
"Brother Chen, there are more girls at this table than just Ningning. Your favoritism is too obvious!"
"Exactly, exactly, though looks are certainly justifiable, Brother Chen, we’re not that bad, right?"
The other girls at the table joked too, which prompted Brother Chen to quickly serve a Shajing oyster to everyone.
They were all colleagues from the same department, but Brother Chen was slightly older. A few of the other guys also wanted to chat with this beautiful new colleague, but they didn’t have Brother Chen’s courage and were left handing out utensils and napkins in silence, hoping to catch the girl’s attention...
"Thanks, I can help myself..."
The girl sitting to the side wore a sleeveless drawstring top and a mid-length plaid skirt, revealing a stretch of smooth, fair legs. Her features were exquisite and well-defined, almost unreasonably beautiful.
At least in this noisy seafood stall, she was undoubtedly the most captivating sight.
Sun Xining wore a reserved yet appropriate smile on her face and kept thanking the guys at the table, but she felt only boredom inside.
Because these guys were, honestly, a little too inexperienced; just a glance, and she could easily figure out what each one was thinking... it was hardly engaging.
If it weren’t for this dinner, which was Brother Chen’s suggestion, gathering the department colleagues to welcome her to the team, she wouldn’t even want to come.
But what could she do?
Since she decided to return to normal life, even moving to Peng City to find a new job, she had to adapt and experience these things.
With an inner sigh of helplessness, Sun Xining picked up the juice from the table and smiled brightly, "From now on, please take good care of me, seniors~"
"Ningning, aren’t you having some red wine?" a girl beside her asked.
"Sorry, I’m not really good at drinking..."
Sun Xining said somewhat embarrassedly.
"No worries, no worries, girls can just have drinks!"
Seeing Sun Xining being so well-mannered, a few guys hurriedly responded.
After putting down her glass, Sun Xining tried to join in their conversation, but still found it difficult. Just as she was about to pull out her phone to scroll through Little Red Book, she heard a girl next to her exclaim:
"Ah, my god just updated his video. It was posted last night, how did I only see it now!"
"What god?"
Another girl beside her looked up curiously, "It wouldn’t be that Korean idol you liked before, named Kim-something, right?"
"Of course not, I suddenly realized those boyish looks aren’t that appealing at all. There’s no way they compare to my god now—he’s handsome, rich, and in great shape..."
"Who is it, let me see!"
As another curious girl leaned over, Brother Chen laughed and said:
"Xiao Juan is talking about that guy called Zhou Wang, huh. I’ve seen you loop that song ’Friendship Years’ for several days now, and you’re still not tired of it..."
"That’s right, it’s him. How could I ever tire of it? I want to capture the scenes of him playing the piano and make a high-definition mouse pad out of them, hehe!"
The girl called Xiao Juan laughed, ignoring whether Brother Chen’s words carried any disdain, and showed the Douyin video to the girl next to her, all the while introducing Zhou Wang’s personal details.
"He is quite handsome. Wow, his house is huge, too. Is he some kind of star?... ’Like and comment for a chance to win one of ten thousand "Black Myth" activation codes’—what is "Black Myth"?"
The other girl, after watching the video, was amazed at first and then puzzled.
Xiao Juan clearly didn’t know either, and as she was about to look it up, a few guys couldn’t stay seated any longer.
"Giving away ’Black Myth’?"
"Ten thousand activation codes? Seriously... Xiao Juan, where did you see this?"
"This blogger’s name is Zhou Wang, right, let me search for it!"
After finding out more, several guys quickly pulled out their phones and found Zhou Wang’s personal account, opening his latest video.
The footage of Zhou Wang casually roaming inside the house was automatically ignored by them, or rather they had no time to care about how luxurious his house was, only focusing on the information at the end of the video.
"No way, they’re actually giving them away. I saw someone in the comments showing their winning information."
"Also, there are one hundred sets of the deluxe physical edition worth 820 yuan and ten sets of the collector’s edition worth 1998 yuan?"
"Whoa, the 108,000th like gets a collector’s edition. It’s just hit 1 million likes, let me follow and time it..."
Hearing the heated debate among the guys, even Brother Chen couldn’t sit still and joined them.
"Collector’s edition too? Is it for real!"
"It is, Brother Chen, see the guy who got the 880,000th like already shared a screenshot of a private message, the person’s asking for his address!"
Seeing Brother Chen pull out his phone and start fiddling, all the colleagues at the table lowered their heads, leaving the somewhat dazed Sun Xining to finally come back to her senses.
Zhou Wang...
This name, which she had almost deliberately forgotten, suddenly appeared in such an unexpected way, catching her off guard.
She had thought about deleting Zhou Wang several times, as a gesture to bid farewell to the past.
But why, even after moving all the way to Peng City, could she still hear his name among a bunch of strangers...
Once she came to her senses, Sun Xining also opened her phone, and after a moment easily found "Zhou Wang’s" account.
Listening to the enthusiastic discussions of the guys next to her, Sun Xining was slightly shaken. So Zhou Wang just threw millions out again this time...
After repeatedly watching the two videos Zhou Wang had posted, Sun Xining stared at that vibrant face on the phone screen for a while, suddenly feeling a bit weak in the knees.
She struggled for a bit, but ultimately couldn’t suppress the sudden urge. She got up and headed toward the restroom.